It will kill the game if the intention is to replace UK clubs, as you'll have numerous games with no atmosphere. The worst home game for every club is Catalans. No atmosphere, no tribal mentality. The same when London were around. Multiply that by five and you have many boring afternoons and crowds will suffer, as will the game at grassroots.

The only way it would work is if it was a conference system, with those overseas clubs forming one conference.

They currently are starting the process. On RL on RY, they had the Trinity owner on and he was saying that he's been given the job of looking into how much money we're getting, seeing where it's been spent and where it can be improved. It's only just started but the Clubs are wanting to know more details but like I said the Clubs are after improvements if possible and if any new ideas can be brought to the table in the process.

If there is to be a conference system you need at least four but preferably six clubs in each conference, who play members of their own conference twice, and non-conference clubs once. Also north American clubs and French clubs cannot make up one conference because of the geographical distance. They would have to have one conference each. That would mean a lot more French and north American clubs before we are finished expanding.

With a conference system we would have to peg British Super League clubs to twelve members only, with a priority to finding a place for London (because of its strategic location in the south and because it is the national capital) and Bradford (because of its large grass roots support, which is close to that of Salford, Widnes and Wakefield combined). Cardiff, Edinburgh and Dublin could also be considered for the British conferences. The British Super League clubs would be divided into two conferences.

With members of each conference playing their own conference members twice and every other conference club once that would amount to 28 games a year. The Magic Weekend would have to be discarded of course.

At least you agree that the American clubs cannot be in Super League as currently structured, which sounds like the brainchild of Lenagan.

I do think Lenagan is underestimating how much the grass roots of the game relies on fans in areas without glamorous clubs. You appear to have omitted Castleford from your list of unglamorous clubs, who until recently were a yo-yo relegation club and got crowds on a par with Wakey. When the success subsides, so will the crowds. Equally, you're trumpeting Bradford, whose crowds were built entirely on an unsustainable business model.

If you take away the grass roots smaller clubs (as you no doubt think of them), the game will shrink even more around the M62, to the extent that it will stop being a draw once you get a mile from it, rather than expand to new lands.

Like London, rugby league will attract some interest because it's new. But it won't attract longevity.

Thanks for that. It's good to know.

It's only taken 22 years of SL, for them to start looking at this. But at least they're starting.

Personally would get rid of magic weekend, and the clubs take a game on the road. It might cost them at first, but would broaden knowledge of the game, and could attract more people to the game.
Like I said we should promote Barla more (at the moment I'm thinking of going over to Hull to see the Uni v Mytons derby game in the challenge cup).
I don't know if clubs still do this. But kids for a quid in games were you're not expecting a big attendence . Trying to attract a newer ordinance.
More promotional things at certain games like a French day when playing Catalans etc.
Improve the presentation on sky, making it and the sport look organised.

There are obviously bigger things, but to improve the match day experience will in my opinion get more people in. Get more the people in and the whole sport looks more organised/professional attractive to potential investors.

When Toronto/Manchester Wolfpack kept scoring against us last week, it was greeted by silence. I LOVED IT...Let's have some more, who needs away fans anyway !!

Last season every clubs biggest home attendance was for their Toronto fixture, so the no away fan argument is nonsense.

There is no way Wakefield take 1000 away fans, with the exception of maybe Castleford (which is still in Wakefield so doesn’t really count).

Some of the best atmospheres I have experienced at Leeds games in recent years have been our games against Melbourne, Manly, N Queensland, Canterbury and New Zealand. Those nights, the away ends were full, but they were full of Leeds fans.

And Catalans is far from the worst atmosphere at Headingley (nor is it the necessarily the lowest crowd). That's because the club works hard to get the match day experience right and pull in the locals.

To put another slant on things about away fans, they are much more important to the lesser clubs in our game. For instance, looking at Oldham's attendance figures last season, the average attendance for teams who don't have many travelling fans (Dewsbury, Batley, Toulouse, London and Sheffield) was around 550. The average for the other teams, which includes local derbies (Swinton, Halifax, Featherstone, Bradford, Rochdale and Hull KR) was around 1,000.

Accepted that away fans are less important financially to the top clubs, but vital for the likes of Oldham, where away supporters accounted (if we assume that the lower attended games had just 50 away supporters) for around a third of turnstile traffic for their home games last season.

In terms of attendances for Toronto fixtures, I'm sure we'll see something of a boost in attendances this year (albeit not as clear cut as last year), but I suspect that this will be mainly down to a combination of novelty factor and the fact that they'll be a team that most clubs' fans will want to beat. I doubt we'll see this skew in numbers after the novelty wears off in future seasons (regardless of what league they're in).

Fair point, a bit like Wigan and Hull playing SL games in Aus. They can muster a decent following the first time around but would struggle to repeat that on an annual basis.

We just did to Hull KR, but what would you know.